Oily sludge is one of the primary industrial wastes generated in connection with crude oil production. A large amount of oily sludge is generated each year by the oil industry. The main source of the oily sludge is tank bottoms. Other potential sources of oily sludge include oil-water separators, operating slops, oil spills and operating residues.
Petroleum refiners have utilized a variety of means for treating or disposing of this oily sludge waste. One such means is landfarming. Landfarming is an aboveground remediation technology for reducing concentrations of oily sludge and other petroleum waste product constituents in soil. Landfarming typically involves mixing a petroleum waste product with a thin layer of soil on the ground surface, and then stimulating biodegradation of the mixture. Biodegradation is a microbial treatment of the soil and petroleum mixture through aeration and/or the addition of minerals, nutrients, and moisture. The treatment results in enhanced microbial activity, which causes degradation of the petroleum product constituents.
The petroleum products treated in a landfarming system typically include components that are volatile, such as gasoline, components that are nonvolatile, such as heating and lubricating oils, and components that fall somewhere in between, such as kerosene and diesel fuel. In general, a petroleum product can contain more than one hundred different constituents that possess a wide range of volatility. During landfarming, the lighter, more volatile petroleum products tend to evaporate out. The mid-range products contain lower percentages of lighter, more volatile constituents, and biodegradation of these petroleum products is more significant than evaporation. Heavier, nonvolatile petroleum products generally do not evaporate out during landfarming, and the dominant mechanism that breaks down these petroleum products is biodegradation. Generally, the higher the molecular weight of the nonvolatile petroleum constituent, the longer the period of time required to break down the constituent.
It is highly desirable for researchers to be able to study the effect of one or more physical or biological factors, for example, temperature, wind and/or microorganisms, on the evaporation and/or biodegradation of oily sludge and other petroleum waste treated in a landfarming system. This type of study, however, has traditionally only been possible at the actual physical location of the landfarming system. As such, researchers have been limited as to the extent to which they could alter temperature and environmental conditions without disturbing the physical surroundings and/or the landfarming process. Further, attempts to produce desired temperature or environmental conditions at actual locations for experimental purposes have proven to be costly and inefficient. Therefore, the art has sought an apparatus or method for simulating real environmental conditions in a laboratory setting which allows researchers to study the effect of various physical and biological factors on the overall diminution of oily sludge hydrocarbons in a landfarming system and is efficient and cost effective
The present invention is used in the field of oily sludge waste management. The apparatus and method of the present invention is used to study the affect of heat, temperature, wind speed and other physical and biological factors on the loss or degradation of oily sludge hydrocarbons in a landfarming system.